The 5 principles of biosecurity
When designing biosecurity programs, there are some general principles that are of value in all settings.
1. Separation of high and low risk animals and environments
To avoid disease transmission it is important to try to keep the sources of infection (e.g. animals, persons, vermin) separated from the susceptible contacts (healthy animals) as much as possible. This can be achieved through the prevention of direct contacts between high-risk (infectious) and low-risk (susceptible) animals, as well as the prevention of indirect contacts.
2. Reduction of the general infection pressure
Even with the best possible biosecurity measures, it is not possible, and probably not even desirable, to keep animals under sterile conditions. Therefore, it is important to have good cleaning and disinfection procedures in place. In that way, biosecurity measures aim at reducing the infection pressure under a level that allows the natural immunity of the animals to cope with the infections.
3. Not every transmission route is equally important
Some transmission routes may transmit many different pathogens with a high efficiency (e.g. direct animal-animal contact), whereas other transmission routes (e.g. air) are at lower risk of transmitting disease. Therefore, when designing biosecurity control programs, it is of important to focus first on the high-risk transmission routes and only subsequently on the lower risk transmission routes.
4. Risk is a combination of probability of transmission and frequency of occurrence of transmission routes
Besides the probability of transmission of a pathogen through the different transmission routes, the frequency of occurrence of the transmission route plays a very significant role as well. If a certain transmission route (eg. transmission via hands of animal care takers) has only a low probability of occurrence, but it is repeated very frequently (eg. animal care taker is touching the animals several times a day without precautionary measures), the risk of disease transmission ends up being very substantial anyway.
5. Larger animal groups pose higher risks
The larger herds or flocks become, the more important biosecurity measures will be. In large groups of animals, there are more animals that can become infected and maintain an infection cycle to subsequently build up the infection pressure above the limit that the animals can cope with. Moreover, larger herds or flocks have more frequent contacts with the outside world (eg. movements of animals, transport of feed, professional visitors, among others) that all may carry a certain risk of disease introduction. Also in larger and/or high productive herds, the high-producing animals may be more susceptible to disease, and therefore the consequences of disease introduction may be more severe compared to smaller herds.
Book: Biosecurity in animal production and veterinary medicine
The book Biosecurity in Animal Production and Veterinary Medicine is the first compilation of both fundamental aspects of biosecurity practices, and specific and practical information on the application of the biosecurity measures in different animal production and animal housing settings.
The book starts with a general introductory chapter on the epidemiology of infectious diseases, followed by a chapter explaining the general principles of biosecurity. Specific topics of biosecurity, including rodent and insect control, cleaning and disinfection, hygiene and decontamination of feed, drinking water and air, and measuring the biosecurity status of farms, are detailed in dedicated chapters. It is a practical guide that can be used by farm and animal facility managers, consultants, veterinarians, animal caretakers, and people with an interest in prevention of diseases in animals. Academics and students will benefit from the book because it contains all relevant information on animal biosecurity.
Interested in getting this book? A revised edition is in progress.
Scientific publications using Biocheck.Ugent
2026
- Biosecurity Practices on Small- and Medium-Scale Dairy Farms in Northern Kosovo: A Risk-Based Scoring Assessment (Mehmedi et al., 2026).
- Assessing structural and reported biosecurity measures in Irish broiler farms from 2019 to 2023 (Wei et al., 2026).
2025
- Strengths, challenges, and variations - insights into biosecurity practices in Swedish poultry production following HPAI outbreaks (Grant et al., 2025).
- Biocheck.UGent: A risk-based tool to assess the status of biosecurity in backyard poultry in low- and middle-income countries (Ibrahim et al.,2025).
- Impact of biosecurity on production performance and antimicrobial usage in broiler farms in Cameroon (Ziebe et al., 2025).
- Biosecurity practices and their determining factors in commercial layer chickens in selected regions of Tanzania (Mdemu et al., 2025).
- Temporal trends in biosecurity in Irish pig herds using a standardized scoring system (Correia-Gomes et al., 2025).
- The correlation between on-farm biosecurity and animal welfare indices in large-scale turkey production (Kovács et al., 2025).
- Assessing biosecurity compliance and trends in Irish layer farms from 2020 to 2023 (Wei et al., 2025).
- Quantitative assessment of biosecurity practices in conventional broiler farms in Punjab, Pakistan (Mahmood et al., 2025).
- Biosecurity compliance on broiler farms and livestock farmer advisors’ knowledge of biosecurity in Cameroon (Vougat Ngom et al., 2025).
- Characterization of biosecurity practices and viral infections on pig farms in Hong Kong (Haile et al., 2025).
2024
- Development and use of Biocheck.UGent scoring system to quantify biosecurity in conventional indoor (turkey, duck, breeder) and free-range (layer and broiler) poultry farms (Amalraj et al., 2024).
- Factors Affecting Poultry Producers’ Attitudes towards Biosecurity (Amalraj et al., 2024).
- Assessment of Cleaning and Disinfection Practices on Pig Farms across Ten European Countries (Makovska et al., 2024).
2023
- Biosecurity and antimicrobial use in broiler farms across nine European countries: toward identifying farm-specific options for reducing antimicrobial usage (Mallioris et al., 2023).
- Situation Analysis and Recommendations for the Biosecurity Status of Dairy Farms in Punjab, India: A Cross-Sectional Survey (Dhaka et al., 2023).
2021
- Viral metagenome-based precision surveillance of pig population at large scale reveals viromic signatures of sample types and influence of farming management on pig virome (He et al., 2021).
- Coaching Belgian and Dutch broiler farmers aimed at antimicrobial stewardship and disease prevention (Caekebeke et al., 2021).
- Antimicrobial use, biosecurity, herd characteristics, and antimicrobial resistance in indicator Escherichia coli in ten Finnish pig farms (Yun et al., 2021).
2020
- Biosecurity levels of pig fattening farms from four EU countries and links with the farm characteristics (Chantziaras et al., 2020).
- Herd typologies based on multivariate analysis of biosecurity, productivity, antimicrobial and vaccine use data from Danish sow herds (Kruse et al., 2020).
- Biosecurity assessment of layer farms in Central Luzon, Philippines (Tanquilut et al., 2020).
- Biosecurity Level Practices in Pig and Poultry Production in Vietnam (Thi Kim Cuc et al., 2020).
- A risk-based scoring system to quantify biosecurity in cattle production (Damiaans et al., 2020).
- Quantitative assessment of biosecurity in broiler farms using Biocheck.UGent in Central Luzon, Philippines (Tanquilut et al., 2020).
2019
- Using the Biocheck.UGent™ scoring tool in Irish farrow-to-finish pig farms: assessing biosecurity and its relation to productive performance (da Costa et al., 2019).
2018
- Scoring biosecurity in European conventional broiler production (Van Limbergen et al., 2018).
- Association Between Antimicrobial Usage, Biosecurity Measures as Well as Farm Performance in German Farrow-To-Finish Farms (Raasch et al., 2018).
2017
- Review of transmission routes of 24 infectious diseases preventable by biosecurity measures and comparison of the implementation of these measures in pig herds in six European countries (Filippitzi et al., 2017).
- Reducing antimicrobial usage in pig production without jeopardizing production parameters (Postma et al., 2017).
2016
- Evaluation of the relationship between the biosecurity status, production parameters, herd characteristics and antimicrobial usage in farrow-to-finish pig production in four EU countries (Postma et al., 2016).
- Farm-economic analysis of reducing antimicrobial use whilst adopting improved management strategies on farrow-to-finish pig farms (Rojo-Gimeno et al., 2016).